Friday, August 16, 2013

Living in the Mid-West, I've gone to the Chicago Comic Con on-and-off for the past 15 years or so, give-or-take. The BIG one in San Diego is just too far away, too big, and sold out too quickly. But, Chicago is a nice-sized show--big enough to draw some known names, but not so big as to be over-whelming.

That said, this year was surprisingly busy. We went on Saturday, August 10th, 2103, and got there about 11:30am to let the line at the door die down a bit. However, the joke was on us, as it was almost impossible to find parking in the area and the line still went on for about 75 yards at the door. Sigh... Good thing the line moved relatively quickly, so it wasn't too bad--only about 15-20 minutes to get in and through the lines.

I was also pleased to notice that there seemed to be a larger contingent of women at the Comic Con. There are aspects of Comic Geekdom/Nerdom which can come off a bit "No Girls Allowed!", except as objectified beings with a thong bikini and a beach-worth of silicone. And, IMHO, the only way for that to change is to have a wider involvement of the female of the species, if you will. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that happening.

So, we wandered about for hours, stared at some famous people, checked out Artist Alley (which was expanded this year--something else I was pleasantly surprised at), checked out some of the cool Cosplay going on (and there was LOTS of that this year, too), and just generally gawked at all manner of cool stuff.

Robert Rodriguez was there with a touring version of Frank Frazetta paintings for a live-action version of "Fire and Ice" he is trying to make, so I got to see 18 of his original paintings. HOLY CRAP those were cool!

Another view of where we came in...

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A few years back, my kids expressed interest in going to the Chicago Comic Con with me. My eldest daughter wanted to get autographs from wrestlers, while my youngest was just getting into comics and pop-nerd culture. And now the kids kinda sorta hide their shame of being seen with me and public and almost look forward to going with me to Comic Con. Whodathunkit? :-)

Each year we've gone to Chicago Comic Con, my youngest daughter has made a costume of some sort. This year, she went as a Wampa (while we didn't get much sleep the night before, that's brown eye-shadow under her eyes ;-)

Wizard World Chicago Comic Con 2013: Wampa -- NOT A TAUNTAUN! :-D

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In 2011, she went as a low-rent version of Bat Girl. The most disturbing comment: As we were walking back to the car at the end of the day, a wife leaned over to her husband and said "Hey, you have the same underwear she's wearing!" Um...

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In 2010, a Warrior Princess. And again with the heavy eye-shadow... :-P

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And, just so she doesn't feel left out... ;-)

Here's my eldest daughter at Chicago Comic Con in 2013.

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And here she is with her FAVORITE wrestler, Kevin Nash, in 2010. :-D

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At the end of the show, my legs were sore from all the walking and I left with my usual mixture of "That was COOL!" elation and "Crap! I really need to work harder and up my game!" depression. Sigh...

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

It's Lou Ferrigno taking a picture of Nichelle Nichols for a fan. I took this pic at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con about 10 years ago and it makes me smile every time I see it. :-)

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D'oh! Because I'm a moron, I thought I had this set to automatically publish last week but, alas, I still had it as a "Draft" posting. Sigh...

Anyhoo, sorry for the lack of posts this month. I was out of state on vacation and taking my Nerdlings off to Chicago Comic Con 2013 this past Saturday, August 10th. I'm currently going through the pictures and will post some of them Thursday night/Friday morning.